Posts Tagged ‘library2.0’

Once again, I have to sit though another webinar that my library director made me watch. I will say right away that I hope this was some kind of free event because if we (read the library) paid for it, we should be demanding our money back. The title of the webinar in question was "Cultivating Loyal Customers by Delivering Meaningful and Memorable Service." It's one of those seminars that TLA (Texas Library Association) provides for librarian continuing education. The featured speaker was" Steve Wishnack [who] is the founder and President of Think & Do, providing consultation, seminars and workshops that help organizations cultivate customer relationships" (his website: www.thinkanddo.us). According to the TLA website, he has both BA and MS degrees in Education from Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY. So that is what education majors who don't go into schools to teach do: they become consultants, and I am not saying that in a good way.

A side note: I just looked up the information online. I am guessing we did pay for it, or the library director paid. Either way, I want the 45 bucks or so back.

Getting back on track, this was basically an hour and half or so of condescending, patronizing platitudes about how to provide good customer service. And when Wal-Mart is used as the example of good customer service, you have to know this is just not right. One of my colleagues noted that the speaker's presentation had a 2005 copyright date, an indication the presentation had not been updated since that time, so we are not even getting any new information. Which once again leads me to say: tell me something I do not know.

What follows are some notes from the presentation with my comments in parenthesis:

Customer service has to be meaninful, that is, it satisfies a customer need. Customer service is also memorable, which means that it leaves a lasting impression.

(Clearly the presenter sees the library as a business, which puts him on par with other library gurus who go for the library as business concept). The library is a place that conducts library business (yes, he actually said that), and customers are the people the library does business with (yes, he also said that). Libraries are not for profit, but they are in a service business.

There are two types of customers. External customers are the ones outside the library staff (i.e. the patrons, so on). Internal customers are the ones who work at the library (I think this is a little overreaching with the customer paradigm).

Some issues:

Competition: Things like the Internet and Google.

Market share.

ROI, the return on investment. This is what the community, or the university in our case, wants to know.

Assets: this includes the items in the library, such as the books, computers, the building, so on (however, there was no mention of the people. The librarians could be considered assets in the measure that they are information specialists. In fact, I just saw in some article I can't recall now a discussion of this very idea, so the idea of the librarians as being an asset to their campus was pretty fresh in my mind. It was not something this presenter even considered).

The presenter gave Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as a reference. That did not exactly inspire much confidence in the presenter.

The ABCs of customer relationships:

Attitude: this comes from inside.

Behaviors: This is how you express your attitude. (And I have to make a pause here because, as my colleague pointed out, we may be cynical for instance, but we are careful not to show it to the patrons. It's called being a professional, which apparently the presenter nor my boss keep in mind. Because we are professionals there are certain attitudes or views that we do not show or express to the patrons even when they justly deserve it. Again, it is called being a professional, something that was lacking in this cookie cutter presentation).

Connections: How we interact with others.

The value of loyal customers:

They use the library more.

They are easier to serve.

Free library advertising.

(However, just because they are loyal, it does not follow they are good customers. Maybe the presenter needs to read this column by Shaun Rein on "Get Rid of Jackass Clients." Rein also mentions the work of Bob Sutton, who is a favorite of mine and whom I respect a lot more).

When a customer feels mistreated, only 5% will tell you. 95% will not return (see my note above. Out of that 95%, I bet a good number of them we'd be happy if they never return). 80% will bad mouth you (sure, I would rather they not do that, but it is a fact of life you cannot please everyone. You put your best foot forward, you do your best to provide for their service or needs, but you are not their personal lackey or slave).

A cute acronym (this presentation had a few of those): MAGIC.

Making A Good Impression Counts.

Another cute acronym: RATER

Reliability: dependability, accuracy, consistency.

Assurance: knowledge, trust, competence, confidence.

Tangibles: physical appearance of our people and our workplace.

Empathy: caring and attentiveness.

Responsiveness: willingness to help promptly.

The most deadly attitude to customer service is indifference (I can agree with that. You do need a degree of passion and caring to work with people).

(The director made it a point to send a memo after the presentation. She writes: "We all know how easy it is to slip into cynicism and negativity. Certainly, difficult situations will NEVER improve if they start with negative attitudes, but courtesy and a positive attitude CAN improve interactions. The speaker did stress that 'it takes PRACTICE to make good customer service permanent" ).

(Again, like the presenter, the director needs to do some further reading. I hate to say this but there are moments that no matter how my attitude is, the customer comes with a bad attitude and no amount of good attitude on your part is going to fix things. Again, this was not addressed at all in the presentation nor acknowledged by the director).

Quote from the presentation: "Our customers will be enthusiastic about us if we are enthusiastic about our customers" (again, see my notes above on professionalism. As I saw elsewhere, I don't have to like the patrons to help them and give them good service).

Another quote: "Fix the problem, not the blame" (the director likes this one. I will just not go there).

This is another note on webinars that my boss makes me attend. For some reason, our boss is on a roll in terms of making us watch webinars related to academic libraries. Actually, yesterday she mentioned that one of the reasons was that, since some of the webinars were free, that she was trying to get some training for us given the fact that the budget overall is tight. However, I tend to think that there is such a thing as being too cheap. No, I don't think she herself is cheap. I just think the way the training is done is cheap. This particular one, an ACRL webinar on "Academic Librarianship by Design" was not free, but it certainly felt cheap. It felt cheap because it yet another one of those webinars where I was not hearing anything I had not heard before. This one dealt with ways to integrate library services into a campus's course management system (CMS) like Blackboard. I suppose on the positive side, if something can be salvaged, is that the webinar pretty much reaffirmed a lot of what we are already doing. It confirms the things that our instruction librarian has been fighting for, often with either opposition or right out indifference from the IT folks, to get the library into Blackboard.

Yes, we do have a library tab on Blackboard that provides links to various services (and boy did we have to fight over that one).

Yes, we do have embedded/blended librarians.

Yes, we are pretty good at using things like Elluminate, virtual reference, online chat, so on.

Yes, we are good at creating content and tools that our patrons will need and use.

So, once again, tell me something I do not know already. Show me something new, and something that I can actually use with the resources and restrictions I have to face. Yes, it is nice to see what other places are doing, but after a while, I want a little more substance than a basic overview. And I don't want to sound picky or superior, far from it, but basically stuff like this is just too basic. We do that stuff already with what we got. Unless unlimited money appears (unlikely to happen) and major attitude overhaul in IT and the administration happens (even less likely), we are not going to be doing things that some of the more well-heeled places presented are doing.

Am I frustrated? I suppose I am because I could have been getting some good work done in the library, and instead I had to sit for almost two hours listening to stuff that I know already because I am already doing it, or I already read about it someplace else. There is a reason the tagline in my professional blog is "I read a lot of the library literature so you don't have to."

What I am saying is this: there is a time when you have to stop watching what others are doing. It is time to put your money where you mouth is and actually start doing it. Stop worrying about what some other place is doing and concentrate on what it is we are doing. Focus on what it is we do well and measure how well we are doing it. From what I have seen so far, we are doing a lot better than many of those other places I hear about on these webinars. So, how about we focus on our work for a change? Just a thought.

There are days when I wonder if my profession as a whole has a death wish. Not only do outsiders rail on and on about how libraries need to be closed, how they will "evolve" into new spaces (that have nothing to do with the mission of an actual library), or how no one really needs them, but librarians and library professionals insist on deprofessionalizing their own profession, taking the library apart piece by piece, turn it into an arcade or entertainment center, and pretty much go for the lowest common denominator. Of course, if you mention any of this, and you put your name on it as I am doing now, you risk the ire of your professional brethren who will label you as someone who "does not get it." I am not quite sure what to make of the whole mess. Sure, I have my opinions, but I just don't feel like writing a whole post about it.

I have seen a good number of items that have given me food for thought, so here they go in my notes. Maybe some writing will come out of it, maybe not. But I cannot help but wonder why do my professional brethren insist of self-destruction?

Two members of ACRL debate about the future of academic libraries, and from the looks of it, take a mild common ground where they toss the ball and say, "who knows what will happen." Not exactly something to inspire confidence. The event is reported by Inside Higher Ed in "Bookless Libraries?"

Campus Technology looks at the 21st century library as "A Space to Collaborate." Mostly highlights of a new very elegant digital library in Calgary and a few other places. In other words, an example of what gets done when you have a lot of funding to do it and people who think that electronic will overtake everything else.

And via Inside Higher Ed, here we have another college administrator speaking on "Libraries of the Future" where "the university library of the future will be sparsely staffed, highly decentralized, and have a physical plant consisting of little more than special collections and study areas." Funny how administrators who would never dream of doing our front line work with students are the first ones who want to outsource our librarians and library resources.

Stephen Abramspoints to an article in the journal New Review of Academic Librarianship. I have to check to see if we carry the journal, then see if I get around to read it. For now, I am using this note to remind myself. Apparently the issue Abrams mentions deals with the ever present topic of the future of the academic library.

And in the quest to make unlibraries (to borrow Effing Librarian's term), the Annoyed Librarian tells us that "Something's Gotta Give." AL also tells us that "the future is now" in the context of school libraries getting rid of book collections for e-books or other online access rental.

Like this:

The chi.mp service, which describes itself as a content hub and identity management platform, just has a very long way to go before it becomes a good content hub and identity management platform. I got an account back when their beta was closed, and after a few months of toying with it, it just could not meet my needs. Here are some of the problems I found:

A limited number of services available. It has a a very small list of services you can bring in: Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and rss feeds (which can allow you to bring in your blog, for instance), Delicious, and one or two other things. Given the many services out there, they need to expand this list.

The service "does not play well" with Facebook. From the beginning, the chi.mp folks claimed that you could connect your Facebook status to their service. This never worked, and as of today, when I finally made the decision to hit the delete button, it was not working. I saw some notes on their forums that Facebook apparently was giving them difficulties with importing photos into the service. Now, I don't use Facebook for photos much. I use Facebook for photos for the FB library's page, but not for personal use. So, this was not a big issue, but the status and feed integration was definitely a desired feature, and I saw no indication it would get fixed any time soon.

Feeds. I pulled in the feeds from my blogs and my delicious account. I noticed that updating the feed over on chi.mp from the blog was not very expeditious. I made a post this morning earlier, and chi.mp had not picked it up yet. There was no option to refresh the feed when logged in, and no note or indication in their help about how long it could take for a feed to update. A content hub does not work very well if it does not update in a timely matter.

Their help forums. While there is an e-mail for questions and support, most of the help is routed to their forums. For the forums, which are powered by some third party, you have to register (again). This was very off putting for me. I already registered for your service, and you are going to make me jump another hurdle so I can send you feedback, feedback which you claim to welcome? No, thanks.

Overall, it was a good experiment. I got some ideas of things I would like to accomplish in terms of social networking and 2.0. The idea of putting all (or a lot of) my content online in one place is very appealing. That you can control and create personas (public, private, so on) and have your visitors see just what you indicate sounds very good. But at this point in time, the service was simply too limited, and to be honest, it does not do anything that I cannot do on Facebook or even here on Vox. So, not seeing any real point, I finally made the decision to delete the account. Maybe if the service improves substantially, I would be willing to give it another try. For now, it did not work for me, and on the basis of my experience I would not recommend it.

I am still interested in something that can centralize my social network profiles, so I will continue searching. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know.

Like this:

Roy Tennant wrote a list of "The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology." What caught my eye on this were the items dealing more with people. Maybe it is because I am not a "techie" librarian like a lot of the celebrity libloggers are. Or maybe because I tend to think that your technology is only as good as the people you have running it. The idea of good people managing your library's technology has been on my mind lately, and if I was passing this on to my boss, I would especially highlight the following items from the list:

"Maximize the effectiveness of your most costly technology investment — your people."Mr. Tennant makes a good point about making sure you have good resources for your people. Don't bog them down with cheap or less than the best equipment. But I will also say to turn that equation around. Don't go around skimping on good people either. You need to hire good people to manage your technology. Just like library administrators have a specific skill set, which may or not include technological prowess, tech people also have a unique skill set, and it is one not all librarians or library staff have or desire to have (and I say this in terms of temperament, not unwillingness to learn). If you know you are going to need a good systems analyst or similar, hire one. Don't try to skimp by tossing the responsibility to another overworked professional in your library who may not have the full range of skills or the temperament to do it. And don't say "they can learn it" when you define "learning it" as just hand them a folder and hop to it. That's not right.

"A major part of good technology implementation is good project management." Indeed. Again, this goes to the idea that everyone has different skills. It also goes back to the idea that you need good planning, and that you need to be proactive, not reactive. In other words, plan ahead and don't wait for the crisis to happen.

"The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature." I think what Mr. Tennant wrote here pretty much speaks for itself. To administrators, he asks: "Are you willing to throw your political support behind it? Are you willing to invest the resources required to make it a success? Will you marshall the entire organization to support, promote, and use this new site or service? If not, simply don't bother." As I always say, put your money where your mouth is, otherwise, shut up.

Anyhow, my quick two cents. I may add to this later, or probably just add it along to another post with a few other things about library managers.

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I published my article note on libraries using Facebook today. I had written it a couple of days ago or so, and in that time a couple other things on the same topic showed up in the librarian sector of the blogosphere along with some other items I had clipped earlier. So, I am just jotting them down here for reference purposes, and I will then add this as an update over there so I have the reference handy.

Bietila and Edwards did a presentation on identifying outreach opportunities for Facebook. A lot of the literature they cite is material I have read or seen before. What they did was check what the literature says against what the students actually do. Often, things don't match, but now and then you get some matching. A bit of the obvious, but a nice summary if you have not been exposed to the topic. Found viaFriends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services.

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The Tame the Web blog points to a presentation from ACRL Conference on "Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians." There is some really good food for thought there; there are some things I have been trying to say at my workplaces, but often met with lukewarm reception, and definitely some stuff applicable to instruction. I just looked over the slides, and while I would like to further ponder some of the ideas, as usual, time is tight. So for now I am just making a note that the slides exist, and I hope to look them over again later for further reflection. I think there are some ideas in the set I can use, but I need some reflection time, and that is lacking at this moment.